


Amazing Women, Saving the World

by Unfeathered



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Community: intoabar, Crossover, Developing Friendships, Gen, Techie girls, Walk Into A Bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24837958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unfeathered/pseuds/Unfeathered
Summary: Penelope Garcia goes into a bar and meets… Toshiko Sato
Relationships: Penelope Garcia & Toshiko Sato
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16
Collections: A Ficathon Goes Into A Bar





	Amazing Women, Saving the World

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [intoabar](https://intoabar.dreamwidth.org), Spring 2020 round
> 
> Spoilers: _Criminal Minds_ set early S3 before Garcia learns not to go offering computer help to strangers in bars (or coffee shops!); _Torchwood_ set early S1
> 
> Disclaimer: I have no idea if any of the tech stuff in this actually makes any sense to people who actually understand tech stuff, but hopefully it works well enough for the needs of this fic!

Penelope Garcia is a bit of a people watcher. It's hard not to watch and draw conclusions when it's what you do for a living, day in and day out, and far too often way into the night too.

It's hard to turn it off, even when she's just sitting at a table in a corner of a bar, taking some much-needed leisure time. Well, okay, she's kind of still working too, half her attention on her laptop in front of her, but what she's working on isn't an actual case, just a new system she had an idea for, to help JJ filter the most important cases, to flag up the people who need her team the most.

But the other half of her attention is on the people in the bar. And it's kind of been drawn by the little group of people gathered round a table not far away. She hasn't seen them here before, and they do stand out a little, especially the guy in the military coat with the film star good looks and the merry laugh, which is what made her look up in the first place. The laugh is loud enough and uninhibited enough to have drawn quite a few eyes from around the bar. This guy doesn't appear to _do_ quiet or subtle.

And oh god, his _smile_. It's the kind of smile that could make a girl go weak at the knees, the kind of smile that might even start to rival Derek Morgan's in its warmth and brilliance. Not that anyone could hold a candle to Derek, of course, but she can't help noticing other similarities, like the easy confidence, the flirting, the way he's obviously working to entertain his team, without it actually being obvious that he's working at it at all.

She's fairly sure a team is what they are. They're too much of a bunch of misfits to be friends. Apart from which, she can't think of any other reason why the pretty Japanese woman would be frowning down at her laptop like that if they weren't working on something. Not that the others appear to be doing much working. The short, frog-faced guy has half his attention on the dance floor and the other half on the dark-haired girl beside him, and _she_ is looking all dark and serious one moment and then bursting out laughing the next at something one of the two men has said.

But tech-girl is working, alternately tapping away at her laptop and touching her ear and apparently talking to someone presumably back in the office. It's a different dynamic from her team's, where _she_ would be the one back in the office, though of course there have been the odd occasions where she was needed on location.

It's not long, though, before tech-girl smiles and announces something that makes the others beam and cheer and relax. And it's not long after that that frog-face downs the rest of his beer and pulls the dark-haired girl out of her seat and across to the dance floor.

Shortly after _that_ , coat-guy heads over to the bar for another drink (though Garcia's pretty sure that what he's drinking is only water, unless he's the sort of man who can drink that quantity of vodka without getting noticeably drunk) and starts chatting up a pretty young man at the bar. Garcia sighs. She might have known.

Tech-girl is still bent studiously over her laptop, sighing at something that looks like it's taking forever to load, and Garcia feels bad for her, left all on her own to finish up while the others are off enjoying themselves. After a moment's hesitation, she closes her own laptop and stuffs it and her other paraphernalia away in her bag, and heads on over.

"Hi!" she says brightly. "You know, if you want I could hook you up on a greatly superior, super-secret Wi-Fi network that'd get that all done in a _fraction_ of the time!"

Tech-girl startles and looks round almost guiltily, immediately attempting to nudge her laptop round subtly to an angle where the screen's not so visible. Garcia immediately makes a big, over the top, show of not looking, hands extended in a 'keep away' pose.

"Sorry, shoulda guessed that what you're working on is super-secret too!" she grins. She totters a bit in her heels and sits down with a bit of a plump in coat-guy's abandoned seat, from where the laptop screen is at an angle too oblique to read anything. She clutches her own laptop case on her lap with one hand and sticks the other out in introduction, with another bright smile. "Hi, Penelope Garcia, ex-hacker and current tech genius."

Tech-girl is still looking startled, as if she doesn't get ambushed like this in bars every day, but she makes a clear effort to pull herself together and offers a small, shy smile in response as she takes the proffered hand. Her handshake is brief, and a little preoccupied, but firm. "Toshiko Sato," she says, straightening her back a little, confidence returning.

"Oooh, you're British!" Garcia declares, thoroughly intrigued. "You _are_ a long way from home!"

"Yes, and that's what's making this whole thing so frustrating," Toshiko admits, finger swiping at the laptop's touchpad but mostly in vain, it appears. "I'm trying to sync files all the way from Cardiff and it's just so ridiculously _slow_."

Cardiff – that's Wales, isn't it? Toshiko sounds English, though, and military coat guy sounded American. Dark-haired girl might be Welsh, she thinks? She's not very sure what a Welsh accent sounds like.

But she sure as hell knows how frustrating a dodgy connection can be.

"Oh, honey, I know only too well what that's like," she says sympathetically, patting her laptop case to convey the point that she's in the laptop-in-a-bar club too. "Come on, let me help you. I can have that stuff moving in a _fraction_ of the time!"

"Well…" Toshiko hesitates, glancing towards her captain up at the bar (sharing a laugh with the pretty guy) and then towards the pair on the dance floor (totally caught up in each other with no eyes for anyone else). Toshiko hesitates a moment longer, then gives a small, decisive nod. "All right then," she says, setting her shoulders as she looks up to meet Garcia's eyes with a smile. "Tell me about this amazing Wi-Fi network."

Garcia grins. "Oh, it's way too secret to _tell_ you about, but I can get you onto it in a jiffy!"

She casts about for something to write on. It would seem rude to grab Toshiko's notepad, because there's writing on it and that might be super-secret too, so she fishes a post-it pad out of the pocket of her bag and writes down the address and the password on that, with a sparkly pink pen with an enormous fluffy pompom on the top. She's aware of Toshiko eyeing the pen, and grins a little as she tears off the post-it and hands it over. "There you go. Give it a try. I guarantee it'll be better than whatever you're using!"

Toshiko takes the square of paper cautiously. "It's not… dangerous, is it? Or criminal?" she asks, even while Garcia can see her eyes moving over the code, and fancies she's understanding more than she shows.

"Oh lordy, no!" She grins and leans over to whisper in Toshiko's ear. "FBI. It's my own super-secret superhighway. Don’t tell anyone! Or – you know – I might have to kill you or something."

This gets her another startled look, but after a moment Toshiko composes herself and gives her another little smile. "Well. Thank you. Give me a moment and I'll see if I can get it to work."

"Sure, go ahead, take your time!" Garcia says expansively, with a wave of her hands, and makes a bit of a thing of keeping herself busy, settling her laptop bag down under the table where no-one can steal it, and then leaning back more comfortably. She takes a small sip of what's left of her Sex on the Beach, and twizzles the little turquoise paper umbrella round in her fingers as she lets Toshiko get on with it.

A surprised "Oh!" from Toshiko makes her look up again, and she can't help but laugh a little at the look on the other woman's face. "Good, huh?"

"It's amazing!" Toshiko is staring transfixed at her screen, where apparently everything has finally started moving. "This will get done in no time now!" She looks up, dark eyes wide. "How on earth did you manage this?"

"Sheer natural talent, baby!" Garcia laughs, then tilts her head. "Well, okay, and a few hundred hours honing and perfecting." She shrugs. "Hey, when you want to give your team the best results possible in as little _time_ as possible, you need the very best to give it to them!"

"Well, thank you! You've made my night a hell of a lot easier!"

"My pleasure," she smiles, because it really is, helping out a fellow techie. She shifts a bit on her chair. "So what is you do, you and your team? Are you crime-fighters too?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Toshiko says demurely.

Garcia raises her eyebrows playfully. "Oh, sugar, there's not a lot I wouldn't believe! Cannibals, satanic cults, I've seen it all."

Toshiko's smile shows her dimples. "No, really, you wouldn't believe me. And I really shouldn't tell, anyway, not even to the FBI." She gives Garcia a quick, apologetic look. "But if it means anything, I rather think you've just helped us save a lot of people's lives."

Garcia smiles softly. "That means a lot. Glad I could help. Well…" She glances across to the couple on the dance floor, and then across to the handsome captain at the bar. "Perhaps I could just keep you company while that does its thing? Kinda seems like your team have deserted you!"

"Oh, well, you know." Toshiko shrugs, her eyes downcast. "There's not a lot they can do now. All the action stuff is over. Just the clean-up now, you know?"

"So they get to go and have a good time while you're stuck here with your computer?" That is _not_ how a team works, in Penelope's world. In her world, your team helps with the clean-up, and then takes you out with them to have fun!

(Well, okay, sometimes even her world doesn't work like that but, hey, a girl can dream, can't she?)

She looks at her almost-empty cocktail and then across at the something-and-tonic Toshiko's been nursing for at least the last hour, and she makes a decision. "Right," she says, with a little nod of her head. "I am going to get us some more drinks. And we are going to have a good time too, just the two of us. Do you think your handsome captain would have a problem with that?"

"What, Jack?" Toshiko looks startled. "No, of course not, he…"

"Jack, huh. Well, good! Because I'm not taking no for an answer!"

She collects up their glasses and bustles over to the bar. Military coat guy – _Jack_ – casts a curious glance her way as she approaches but she determinedly ignores him. She gets the bartender's attention easily enough, and then realises she didn't ask what Toshiko wanted. She _could_ see if the bar guy remembers what she'd had before, but what the hell. In her opinion, Toshiko deserves something more exciting to celebrate with than a mere something-and-tonic.

Three minutes later, she's heading back with a pair of ridiculously pink cocktail glasses, complete with umbrellas, swizzle sticks and cherries on sticks.

Toshiko's eyes go round at the sight. "Goodness, what are _those_?"

"Couple of Pink Ladies," Garcia grins, passing one over and clinking hers against it. "Because we deserve it. Amazing women, saving the world, while everyone else is off partying!"

Toshiko's smile is adorably demure and shows off her dimples. "Amazing women, saving the world." She lifts her glass in a toast, her eyes bright. "I think I can drink to that."

**Author's Note:**

> This work is unbeta'd, so please do let me know if you spot any typos or bits that don't make sense!


End file.
